National Geographic

[Delbenes]

The October 2005 National Geographic article "Conservation: A Growing Problem for Bamboo" says crucial flowering for wild bamboo varieties are not taking place due to deforestation. A United Nations Environment Programme report warns that as many as half the world's 1,200 species of bamboo might face extinction because of habitat destruction. Does this mean that dwindling groves of wild bamboo limit the reoccurence of flowering in those varieties, and the cycle of flowering in cultivated bamboo is unaffected? Or just simply, as wild bamboo tracts are cleared, there's no chance for reseeding?

[Markj]

Hi there, I've read so much on the loss of bamboo due to land loss, but this cannot effect the flowering cycle of bamboo, a clone if divided and sent around the world will still flower together, digging some up cannot alter the flowering clock. But land loss is a major problem, without any easy answers.

Mark

[Thuja]

Is that article online or is it only in the printed magazine? I went to the website http://www.nationalgeographic.com/index.html but couldn't find the article or abstract.

[Delbenes]

Mike, The article is only a few columns long, toward the front of the October 2005 magazine.
I scanned the article and emailed it to you, along with its accompanying obligatory panda with bamboo photograph.

[Roy]

Hi there, I've read so much on the loss of bamboo due to land loss, but this cannot effect the flowering cycle of bamboo, a clone if divided and sent around the world will still flower together, digging some up cannot alter the flowering clock. But land loss is a major problem, without any easy answers.

Mark

Mark,

One must take into consideration the differences in environmental factors from one location to another which has an effect on the flowering cycle. Gregarious flowering may not take place throughout the world due to different environmental conditions.

Roy in Tampa

[needmore]

O.K., First I must admit that I just completed a return flight from Honolulu and I've been up for the past 24 hours but....I bought the Nat Geo at the airport and I've been through it 3 times and can not find any bamboo article - can someone please tell me what page it is on? I'm wondering if they do different editions regionally, but it probably is my temporary blindness.

[Markj]

Hi Roy, flowering bamboos, what a subject and we only know half the answers! But I still maintain that when it comes to complete flowering of one clone, this clone will flower whatever the growing conditions and wherever the plant, the amount of time spent trying to stop gregarious flowering is amazing and no one has successfully succeeded. When it comes to partial flowering/stress flowering, growing conditions are paramount, or even full flowering in leptomorph species, conditions will alter the viability of the plant. Each clone will have its own biological clock, I know some have tried to alter this (flowering has been started in the lab) but without success in stopping flowering. The flowering once started has been known to take many years , so prehaps growing conditions may effect the timing within this window.

Tricky subject though

Cheers.

[Delbenes]

Brad, I've got the October 2005 subscription edition, not sure if that's different from the newstand copy. The article is 6 pages before the page 2 killer flu feature in the short articles that aren't page numbered. Check your needmore website email for the scan.

[needmore]

Dean, thanks for the email of the aticle. My issue does not have it!

[Thuja]

That's an interesting twist on how we usually interpret bamboo flowering: viz., as the death of the plant; when in fact it means the opposite: the survival of the species. Of course to survive, bamboo needs an environment to flower where its seeds won't drop onto barren concrete or asphalt.